Superconducting Polycrystalline Silicon Layer Obtained by Boron Implantation and Nanosecond Laser Annealing

Abstract

In this work, we report on the material properties of superconducting heavily boron-doped polycrystalline Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) thin layers fabricated by pulsed laser induced recrystallization under experimental conditions compatible with high volume CMOS integration. This approach combines boron implantation and ultra-violet nanosecond laser annealing (UV-NLA) to reach maximum dopant activation by exceeding boron solid solubility in silicon. For our process conditions, material characterizations revealed five laser annealing regimes, including the SOI full-melt, which leads to the formation of superconducting polycrystalline layers. The average critical temperature was found to be around 170 mK, neither influenced by energy density nor the number of laser pulses. In addition, thanks to low temperature measurements coupled with magnetic field variations, we highlighted a type II superconductor behavior due to strong impurity effect. The deducted average effective coherence length of hole pairs in our layers was estimated around 85 nm.